Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday March 29, 2011 @05:38PM
from the just-call-it-a-new-strategy dept.

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica:
"Last week, Washington, DC federal judge Beryl Howell ruled on three mass file-sharing lawsuits. Judges in Texas, West Virginia, and Illinois had all ruled recently that such lawsuits were defective in various ways, but Howell gave her cases the green light; attorneys could use the federal courts to sue thousands of people at once and then issue mass subpoenas to Internet providers. Beryl Howell isn't the only judge to believe this, but her important ruling is especially interesting because of Howell's previous work: lobbying for the recording industry during the time period when the RIAA was engaged in its own campaign of mass lawsuits against individuals. The news, first reported in a piece at TorrentFreak, nicely illustrates the revolving door between government and industry."

We don't need to make threats of violence, we have Article 3 Section 1:

"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."

There's no single enemy. It's not like Egypt or Libya where the regime is mostly at fault, it's all of us. We vote these fucktards in because they promise us wealth. It's like playing the lottery, and we keep doing it, because we believe someday we'll be rich too. Except it doesn't happen.

"She then moved to the Senate, where she served as general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who has close ties to the copyright industries (Leahy is one of the big backers of the COICA Web censorship law that he guarantees will be passed later this year.)

There, Howell helped to write CALEA (the law extending wiretap powers to the Internet) along with the No Electronic Theft Act (providing tougher penalties for online copyright crimes), the DMCA (making it illegal to break or bypass DRM, even if you want to rip a movie from a DVD you own to your iPod), and the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Deterrence Act.

She then moved into private life at Stroz Friedberg, where she began lobbying for the RIAA, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Between 2004-2009, Howell was the only listed lobbyist at the firm; the RIAA was her exclusive lobbying client for most of that time. A lobbyist disclosure form describes her as working on "legislation concerning copyright laws as applied to digital music"—which she would be well-placed to do, having previously helped to write such laws."

Fascism, with its merging of corporate, political, and military power, is almost complete in America.
Too much 'rah rah USA, we so free, we so great, god just loves United States !', from a young age.
Brainwashed people don't see it coming. Those who do go crazy trying to get others to see it.
Even today, people who own a car, or a home, or even a business think they are part of the ownership class.
They cheer the corporations on as if they will benefit.
They believe they are part of the people who own enough wealth to create international policy, national policy, and military support of that policy.
Silly people, they think they are part of the rich, when all they make is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
If you aren't making governments bend to your desire, you are not part of the ownership class.

Your comments are un-american and un-patriotic. I can only guess you're a pirate. You personally are stealing money from thousands of starving artists. Piracy is theft and funds terrorism. The government's first priority should be to track down people like you and make you pay. Your life should be ruined and the lives of your children for going against what we tell you is right.

What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.

The word "corporatist", and what Mussolini meant by "corporate" in his oft-quoted description of fascism, has very little to do with the modern capitalist definition of "corporation". Fascists were more like syndicalists in that respect, and "corporations" were to be more akin to guilds.

What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.

If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.

Well, you've got it backwards. Under fascism the government appropriates businesses for political purposes. In America businesses have appropriated the government for financial purposes. I'm not sure what you call it but it's not fascism.

Although you may disagree with GP, he illustrates his opinions on the current status of US government. If you went by the actual definition of fascism, as opposed to the everyone-I-hate-is-fascist definition, an argument could be made for the US trending towards a fascist government. It could be made against it as well. Do not pander for mods to mark the posts you disagree with as a troll. Instead, present an argument as to why he is wrong, if you believe so.

That's a false duality. There is no reason that regulators can't listen to the industries they regulate as long as the industries aren't buying them trips, cars, vacations, etc...

In terms of avoiding legal messes of the bribery kind, sure. In terms of objectively judging whether or not an industrial operation should or should not be doing something? Um... no. Industry does not tend to be more ethical with its information than it is with its money.

If Congress truly wanted to prove themselves to the American people to be above it all they would ban any contribution of any kind from K-Street to any member of Congress or their families. Further more, they would forbid the same from ever working for such organizations. However I doubt this will come, it will take influence outside of the Democrat or Republican parties.

Yet both are deft at playing people off each other, getting people to focus on the other party, which thereby keeps them in power. When groups rise up outside of their control you can tell as the media will line up and protect their investment, along with all the powers on Wall Street. The American public are only allowed to rise when commanded and when they dare do so on their own the entire establishment comes down in force. Unfortunately too many buy into it and side with the very people keeping them under the thumb of two political parties corrupt beyond repair.

That's a false duality. There is no reason that regulators can't listen to the industries they regulate as long as the industries aren't buying them trips, cars, vacations, etc...

This points out what most Americans and all Libertarians fail to understand about regulation.

Regulation is not "the man" tying the hands of the "free market(TM)". Regulation is supposed to ensure that an industry can run properly, produce products as well as being profitable and competitive.

Proper regulation brings in more competition and allows for better products or lower prices. Part of this is listening to the industry, who have a list of their problems and wants, part of this is listening to the

Even if that weren't a false dichotomy I'd prefer a meddlesome regulator who follows the laws to the letter because he didn't "know anything about what he was regulating" to the lazy one that "knows which regulations don't need to be followed".

but this is ridiculous. I honestly don't think that cases of this nature should be allowed to come before, or be judged by someone who has spent so much time fighting on one side of a cause like that.

That's like asking an ice cream man to preside over a case or cases where someone is suing an ice cream company for them being fat or something (probably not the best analogy, but as close as i could think of). In short, this is retarded, and that judge shouldn't have been allowed to have anything to do with this stuff.

I have given up. America is no longer free - political nor economically free. We're at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Western countries.

We're no longer egalitarian nor is there any upward mobility anymore. Really there isn't.

We're a class based society and there's no way out of it.

For those of you who believe that there is, prove it - with yourself. Don't point out someone who made it big 40 years ago or someone who used his Harvard contacts to make it big, point out someone from East Butt-Fuck Idaho who went to Butt-Fuck State who made it big - show me him. No contacts. Someone with imagination, hard work, and intelligence - that's all.

I agree with you, but there is still upward mobility. I came from a poor family, spent 5 years in the military working on network gear, and now make 6 figures as a network engineer and I still dont have a college degree. While I do not have a business card that says I'm CEO Bitch, I did bring myself out of the small pissant town I grew up in oklahoma and live outside denver with a great view of the mountains.

Though on the flip side, I do not have it as good as in other foreign countries where my masters d

Hmm, how about Obama? He certainly wasn't raised in an upper class environment and yet he's got the top job. He had all the wrong stuff in his upbringing to be president anyway - raised by single mom and grandparents, moving around a lot, not a lot of money, etc. Similar story with Clinton, raised by poor single mom as well. There are similar cases if you look around, it's easy to point to lawyers and judges like this.

Of course they didn't go to Generic State University, but you can get into prestigious universities without being a member of the prestigious classes, and you can get into prestigious post-graduate programs (law school, med school, grad school) even if you did not go to prestigious undergraduate universities.

Lawyers and judges. I think it's notable that it seems only those with skill in manipulating others are exhibiting upward mobility. What about the poor texas kid who's got a great mind for algorithms and math but can't go to college because of . In some parts of the country there is decent public education and a whole slew of leg-ups (scholarships, competitions, etc) for students to make their way forward, but it is still really hard to achieve more than the "average" quality of life through application of

You know, I think the judge recruitment pool would be rather low if you didn't allow those that have either stood as plaintiffs or defendants as lawyers. Because if they're biased then so is the EFF lawyer too, right? Or is that just the lawyers on the side you don't like.

Any good lawyer will - within reason - argue in the way his role demands. I don't think any lawyer could swear that he thought the client was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or that his side's legal theories or

You know, I think the judge recruitment pool would be rather low if you didn't allow those that have either stood as plaintiffs or defendants as lawyers. Because if they're biased then so is the EFF lawyer too, right? Or is that just the lawyers on the side you don't like.

we're not talking about a lawyer being biased, we're talking about a judge being biased. Judes recusing themselves from cases where there is, or even could be, a conflict of interest is not unusual. Her having been a RIAA lawyer creates a worthy argument for recusal, but i could argue the other way as you have. Being a lobbyist, though? That's a lot more conflict-y than just a lawyer trying to properly represent their client.

The principle is called recusal. Look it up if you are curious. It is a serious and frequent enough question that there are pretty good guidelines for judges about when they must recuse themselves from a case and when they should (but are not required to) recuse themselves. For example, new appointees to the Supreme Court often have to sit out cases that came up through the circuit where they served before, because they were involved in that particular case before being appointed to the Court.

You know, I think the judge recruitment pool would be rather low if you didn't allow those that have either stood as plaintiffs or defendants as lawyers. Because if they're biased then so is the EFF lawyer too, right?

Do you really not see the shift you just made? You go from talking about the "judge recruitment tool" in a frankly ridiculous way, then somehow shift to lawyers to take a shot at the EFF.

Of course the EFF lawyers are biased. So are the lawyers they're going up against. That's not a failing of the system, that's the point. These lawyers are their clients' advocates, and we have an adversarial system. They should both be as biased as humanly possible.

A judge, on the other hand, is supposed to be not only capable of making an impartial decision, but to do so in ways and cases that remove even the potential appearance of an improper or biased decision. A former RIAA lawyer ruling on whether or not you can file against thousands of John Does is hardly impartial. It may be one of the gray areas where she technically does not have to recuse herself from the case, but should have, or it may be outright misconduct. In either event, she should not have been the judge ruling on this case.

No, that does not mean the "judge recruitment pool" shrinks nor does it mean that she can't be a judge and can't rule on other federal cases. The same goes for those EFF lawyers you brought up. Nobody has a problem with them being judges, but they probably shouldn't be making any rulings on file sharing cases.

It's like a fencing match and there's no such thing as unsportsmanlike [. ..] if your client won then you did your job.

This is tangential to the point, but that's actually only partially true.

Yes, if you know the law better than your opponent you're simply a better lawyer. But as a lawyer, you also have an obligation to the court and the legal system and there are quite a lot of things you cannot do.

That's like asking an ice cream man to preside over a case or cases where someone is suing an ice cream company for them being fat or something (probably not the best analogy, but as close as i could think of). In short, this is retarded, and that judge shouldn't have been allowed to have anything to do with this stuff.

Or like having a judge rule on a contract case where they once were an attorney representing someone during a breach of contract case? Or having a judge who used to be a prosecutor or def

Actually, shocking as it may seem, virtually all U.S. Federal Judges (and indeed, the vast majority of U.S. judges generally), were once lawyers, "fighting on one side of a case."

Most lawyers have never been lobbyists. This judge was a lobbyist employed by the RIAA. You see, the issue here is that she was recently a lobbyist. Not that she is a lawyer.

I just told you what you could have learned on your own with a little reading comprehension. The information necessary to determine that your post is a waste is contained in the SUMMARY. Fuck man, it's contained in the headline and in the titlebar of your browser. You remind me of the people who have no comprehension of the issues and no understanding of civics who for some reason still insist on voting.

The only real question is whether you are really that clumsy and careless or whether you have some kind of pro-RIAA bias yourself, some kind of sympathy for their cause that makes you want to whitewash the whole affair.

Lots of judges who hear criminal cases in the U.S. were once prosecutors or defense lawyers. Should they be excluded because of potential bias?

No. The purpose of a defense lawyer is to ensure that the accused receives a fair trial, even if the accused is guilty. As an officer of the court a lawyer is expected to do this job professionally, whoever their client may be. Even scoundrels who are guilty as sin deserve a fair trial. That is how the system is supposed to work. Defense attorneys are an important part of making this happen. It is a higher ideal than whether they happen to like the client personally. It is based on principle, not fleeting sentiment.

Should a judge who once made a career as a plaintiff's attorney in medical malpractice suits be barred from hearing cases in that arena?

If they spent years lobbying Congress on behalf of that plaintiff, and were well-compensated for it, then yes the judge should recuse herself from the next medical malpractice case involving that same plaintiff. Not all medical malpractice cases, but the ones involving that particular plaintiff. That's because in this case, the judge's bias is known and has a demonstrable history. It is not hearsay or supposition.

This judge has ties to the RIAA. This is demonstrable history. Unlike legal representation, no one is entitled to lobbyists. The state does not pay for a lobbyist if you are unable to afford one of your own, like the state would pay for a public defender. This judge would have had to favor the RIAA or else she'd have refused to be their marketer before Congress. There is no higher ideal that would motivate someone to lobby.

A judge with any integrity wouldn't want there to be even the question of bias. This case involves the very same organization for whom she lobbied Congress. Not a different organization with the same vague type of "case in that arena" (your attempt to muddy the waters has failed). The exact same one. If it were entirely up to me, this judge would be impeached and a new trial would take place. I take the prospect of overwhelming state power being used against citizens that seriously. If it needs to be done, it needs to be done correctly with no obvious questions of bias.

Increasingly, our country is appears to be more like the Corporate States of America. Sad. Can I have my bill of rights, consumer rights, and right to privacy back please? Or is that now subject to subscription services? (plenty of sarcasm intended).

When they were given the "rights", they should have also been given the same liabilities as people:

- lifespan of 80 years.- incarceration (everyone in the company gets locked up) for wrongdoing.

(i know it doesn't work. just pointing out HOW corporations aren't people and therefore shouldn't have rights as such).

Right now, it's much better to be an incorporated entity than it is to be an individual. They get all the rights, and get to enjoy it for far longer than any person and without the possibility of incarceration if the entity starts enjoying it's "rights" a little too much by violating the rights of others.

This isn't possible. President Obama said that the era of revolving doors at the white house (corporations hiring away whitehouse appointees and whitehouse appointees with conflicting interests being hired away from private industry) was over. Yet, that's all I've seen here. From a company hiring out nearly the entire IRS to help it pay zero taxes to a guy with no history or experience or knowledge in anything becoming the country's "CTO" to . . . this.

I don't know about other states or Federal court, but in Montana, if your case is assigned a judge who you feel cannot be impartial re your case, you can file a simple form that throws that judge off your case. You don't need to explain your reasons, either.

Republicans are blamed if the crony judge rules according to republican political or economic interests. Both republicans and democrats seem to be on the RIAA's side. You *could* blame democrats, but there's not much point unless you think that republicans are going to stand up for the little guy against the major corporation. In this particular case, I was not aware of who appointed the judge, and I'd find it believable either way.

And confirmed by a Democrat Senate (in the lame duck session, right before the Dems lost some Senate seats in January):

Beryl A. Howell (born 1956) is a federal District Court judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on July 14, 2010 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 27, 2010. (Wikipedia)

Well, all you YRO types who voted for Obama, this is what you get.

Too bad I had to post anon due to predictable mod abuse, because I am serious about this topic, not trolling.

It was pretty obvious Obama was not going to be particularly progressive where it counted. McCain, however, after his rightward lurch during the election would probably have gone to war with Iran, would have appointed right-wing nutjobs to the EPA, Department of the Interior, etc., and would have emboldened the Republican party for generations --"look how much we screwed the country up with Bush, and we still got re-elected, we can do anything!" So he was still worth voting for.

Did you have some purpose for posting? Where did *I* say that *Obama* was a liberal?

You did say that liberals would be upset about blaming Obama. He said that he is a liberal and he's not upset about it because he doesn't like Obama and doesn't consider him a liberal. That's a perfectly on topic response that does not hinge on you thinking Obama is a liberal.

However, I turn it around on you. If you did not mean to suggest that Obama is liberal, why did you think liberals would be upset about him being blamed?

, I'm sure that during your pre-election research you decided not to vote for him

Seriously, what is wrong with people like you? Yes, many progressives that voted for Obama are pissed at him and don't have any problem painting him with the same brush as the previous war mongering corporate shill. But he isn't McCain. Let me repeat that he is not McCain! On the one you have a guy who at least appears to be anti-kill poor people in third world countries, pro-civil liberties, pro-rule of law and he is even a constitution scholar. On the other you have someone who talks about staying in

Any more than a fraud = a contract. True conservatives want the crony capitalism cut off, because capitalism means taking risk, risk to fail, not be bailed out by Big Nanny. The Tea Partiers, while just casual, often first-time political participants, do understand this. No bailouts or special deals for cronies, like Obama's UAW peeps. This is what they ran on and why they won. To suggest Obama's corruption of the judiciary somehow lessens that message takes some seriously contorted reasoning.

I'm certainly no legal expert, but shouldn't a judge with such an obvious conflict of interest recuse themselves from such cases? I was under the impression that's what a judge is supposed to do if the judge can't adjudicate impartially?

If she has no current financial arrangement then she may not be _required_ to recuse herself but she most certainly should recuse herself. Caesar's wife and all that. Complaints should be made to the relevant bar associations and her acaedemic institutions. See where it goes from there.

"Judge Beryl Howell received 415,000 USD from the RIAA for lobbying work, from 2005 to 2008, during her tenure at Stroz Friedberg LLC. This financing represents a potential conflict of interest for cases which involve copyright law."

Depends on whether "reeking so badly of corruption as to blanket a mile radius with the stench" constitutes bad Behaviour on the part of a Federal judge (U.S. Const. Art. III Sec. 1) and whether two-thirds of the Senate agrees with the proposition. (Art. I Sec. 3 cl. 6). Yeah, that's... not gonna happen anytime soon.

A large number of posters seem to be confusing bias (pre-determined unjustified favoritism towards one side or the other) with a Conflict of Interest. A Conflict of Interest is indeed a serious matter, and not disclosing them can lead to censure, having a caseload pulled, etc. However, a Conflict of Interest would require a *current* financial or personal incentive to rule for one side or the other. Merely having worked for one side or the other at some point in the past is NOT a Conflict of Interest. J

Why sue everyone with an internet connection when you could just surcharge the connection? There are surcharges on blank discs and burners in various places on this planet, so why not start nickeling and diming at the source here?

Eeurgh. I'm not so sure if it's more revolting that it's plausible or that there have been approximations of this already done successfully.

Or they'll use their clout to whine so much about the supposed "piracy" that the government applies a federal "media" tax where everything that can or does hold any kind of content (from a blank journal notebook to a CD to a hard drive to web space) is taxed and filtered into the RIAA. And those artists who are not part of the RIAA can just eat a dick.

STOP BUYING THEIR MUSIC (and don't pirate it.) Sooner or later they will die away like any meme that has become bad.

You're assuming they'll be able to put 2 and 2 together and figure this out.

Given the fact that they've stated there are 200,000 more pirates then internet connections in Australia I doubt it (23 million population). They didn't even bother to look up stats publicly available on the ABS web site (Australian Bureau of Statistics) before pulling some horrifying looking numbers out of their arse.

The only way to beat them is at the courtroom. The more court cases they can lose the more it costs them. Barr

Our revolution wasn't class-based, because in America, there is the opportunity for class mobility

Go look up the stats on the recently.

Americans, unlike Europeans, don't hate rich greedy bastards. They just hate when they accrue their wealth and power in nefarious ways inconsistent with real capitalists, i.e., crony capitalism. In fact, the Tea Partiers, mocked as simpletons by the left, are ironically, quite clear about such a nuanced position. They didn't run on "no more rich!" They ran on, "no more bailo

Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities